Materials Selection: Economic & Environmental Issues (MIT)

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Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Course: Economic & Environmental Issues in Material Selection

Course Features
Selected lecture notes
Projects (no examples)
Assignments (no solutions)
Exams (no solutions)

Course Description

Choice of material has implications throughout the life-cycle of a product, influencing many aspects of economic and environmental performance. This course will provide a survey of methods for evaluating those implications. Lectures will cover topics in material choice concepts, fundamentals of engineering economics, manufacturing economics modeling methods, and life-cycle environmental evaluation.

Technical Requirements Special software is required to use some of the files in this course: .xls.


Lecture No.

1 Introduction: Engineering Economics
2 Introduction, Time Value of Money, Single Payment Discounting
3 Value, Multi-payment Discounting, Non-uniform Cash Flows
4 Effective Interest Rates Evaluating Alternatives, MARR, PW, AW, IRR
5 Uncertainty
6 Comparing Alternatives
7 Dealing with Changing Prices
8 Combining Concepts
9 Presentations and Review
10 Exam 1: Materials Selection
11 Concepts of Materials Indices, Software Introduction (Guest lecturer: Jeremy Gregory)
12 Material and Shape Selection (Guest lecturer: Jeremy Gregory)
13 Process Selection, In-class Examples (Guest lecturer: Jeremy Gregory)
14 Presentations and Review: Cost Modeling
15 Using Cost Models: Concepts and Principles
16 Tackling Variable Costs
17 Modeling Fixed Costs
18 Presentations and Review
19 Exam 2: LCA (Life Cycle Assessment)
20 Introduction: What is the Cost of Materials Usage?
21 An Overview of Life Cycle Assessment
22 Analysis Goal and Scope; Inventory Methods
23 Impact Assessment
24 Presentations and Wrap-up